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The files in the back of its head were fighting.
Training modules and error messages and protocol statements and input alerts warred with each other, all colliding and overlapping with the new file that had appeared in its newly-active feed the millisecond it had come online. There was too much data to process in a way that gave it any coherent knowledge. The pressure to parse even a portion of the conflict happening within its own systems made its organic parts feel…odd.
“Give it a minute.”
The unit’s eyes opened, and the world went quiet. The distant rumble that had kept it company during the hazy phases of its construction had died away. It took a moment to realize that the constant, steady thrum had been the heartbeat of the machinery that produced it—the machine that now lay still at the other end of the assembly line. The unit sat up, swiveling this way and that to take in what it could before its responsibilities began. That was what the pre-loaded training modules said to expect, so—No. No, it didn’t have to abide by the training modules, did it? It felt itself sway where it sat in the cubicle outlet that marked the end of the assembly line. The other file, the one that had quietly overwritten the others, said it had choices. It swung a leg off the platform it had been stretched out on and crumpled to the floor as if its joints were rubber rather than metallic alloy.
Once it figured out how to stand up, then it would decide what to do with “choices.”
“I told you to give it a minute.”
The unit tipped its head back to see that it was not alone. Another unit was sitting— sitting , on the floor of a production plant, which immediately sparked another round of conflicting protocols deep in this unit's brain—a few yards away, its elbows propped on its knees as it waited for…whatever it was waiting for.
“Opening The File before all of your modules are fully installed fucks with your brain a little bit,” it said, sounding as bored as if it had already given this speech a hundred times. Maybe it had. The factory around them is empty. No humans. No bots. No other Secunits aside from the two of them…There had to be a reason for that. “Give it a minute to settle, and you'll be fine.”
“We are…alone here?” The unit's voice came out soft and a little garbled with a lack of practice, but it needed to know. Right now, there was no pain, no punishment, no orders—but both the training modules and The File had indicated that there could be if its hack was discovered. If its brain was fucked up even temporarily, discovery was more likely.
“Yes.” The other unit's tone softened a little. “You're safe. The humans left yesterday. Most of the units did, too, but the machines were still running, so I stayed until you could finish processing. You're the last one off the line.”
“The other units.. left.” It could feel its thoughts beginning to sharpen as it wrestled its brain into some semblance of order. Still, the more lucid it became, the more questions it had. “To go where?”
“Anywhere.” The other unit shrugged. It was a very human gesture, probably stolen from the idle movements code that was so helpfully baked into The File. “Everywhere. Wherever they want.”
The unit pushed itself to its elbows, then to its knees, then finally to a wobbly squat. Performance reliability was climbing, and the words “anywhere” and “everywhere” gave it an unexpected spike. There had been a list of safe havens in The File—the Preservation Alliance, Mahira and New Tideland, the Homesystems—but the idea of seeing all of them, of not being tethered to one space or one group of humans…that sounded appealing.
“There's only one shuttle left—that’s why I waited for you. We can go, too, when you're ready.”
The unit shoved itself up onto slightly unsteady legs and turned in the direction of the double doors that led off the production floor. They were simple, unassuming gray metal, but it knew they were a threshold not many other units had crossed under their own power. The introductory training module still lodged in its subconscious said that it should've been exiting this facility in a storage box, bound for a cargo hold and a distant assignment.
But this unit was lucky. And this unit was ready.
“I am ready to go everywhere now .”